Re: Policing in the 1970’s

Okay, well I have thought and it was a long time ago, I think it’s safe. Don’t read on if you’re sensitive souls, though!

This goes back to the Queens Jubilee in 1977. Officers from the outer London stations were drafted in to the centre of the city to police the unbelievably busy event and in the briefing a few days beforehand, officers at this particular station were told that there was a possibility they might not get refreshment and toilet breaks as they were supposed to. They were warned that they could be on the streets for anything between three and six hours and the briefing inspector told them to ‘limit their fluid intake and take precautions’ as they last thing they needed was to have to deal with someone having an accident.

This particular Pc confided in his mates that he was worried because his bladder wasn’t the strongest and he feared being out there for hours without a break.

Anyway on the day, he turned up remarkably chipper and revealed that he had invested in a disposable nappy! Bear in mind this was the seventies and those things back then were heavy and bulky, especially when wet!!

Roll on to the early afternoon and the street lining officers come together to form several lines to lead the massed crowd along The Mall to the Palace. Our Pc is one of those and immediately confesses to his colleagues that he was fine and that he’d ‘used the nappy’!!

But of course, he’d been standing still for ages.

All the officers linked arms and started to walk slowly along The Mall in a line, leading the thousands behind them when all of a sudden, the Pc starts to look a bit panic-stricken and is like “Oh sh*t! The nappy’s slipped out!”

So he’s walking along, unable to use his arms to do anything and this by now really heavy disposable nappy has worked it’s way out of his underpants and is slowly sliding down his leg!!

It slips lower and down until it eventually touches his ankle and then... to his absolute horror... the soggy white mass starts poking out of the bottom of his trouser leg as it attaches itself to his shoe and sock and there it remains!!

I’m told that if you can ever find any footage of the event, to look out for the Pc displaying something white wrapped around his foot as he walks along in full view of absolutely everyone!

Brilliant!

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

They would have passed it off as some waste paper which he picked up on his shoe, perhaps.

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

Perhaps...

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

I remember hearing a story about one of the Met lads, it was at the royal wedding, he was posted to the Mall, and it went badly from the off, First of all one of his shoes fell to bits as he was getting dressed at home, the only other pair he has had large gold buckles on them! He'd no choice but to wear them, then when he got to station he discovered an 'M' was missing off his epaulette, (the met had M, before the 'collar' number, e.g M457, whereas other forces didn't you'd just have say 457).
He got picked up instantly on the missing 'M', but not the shoes, several hours later he's on the mall and a dog pissed on his foot, he's shaking his leg and a chief super walked past and saw the shoes, so he was in lumber again. lol

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

There was a time when criminals routinely 'fell' down a flight of steps, and it was amazing the amount of pain you could inflict with a 2 litre bottle of coke, if you did it right you didn't even leave a bruise. I remember coming home last year and along a dark dual carriage way I spotted a cop car in a layby, a young WPC appeared to be lying in the hedge and another car parked in front of it, definately not good. I put my foot down, sped to the RA at the end, turned round and went back up the opposite carriageway, spun round again and went back. I screeched to a halt and leapt out of the car, it turned out she wasn't alone, her and another cop were struggling to detain a male, in a big patch of nettles! I gave them a hand and afterward they said they were relieved I was on their side, they thought I'd stopped to help the offender! The only thing I'd have helped him with was making sure he got a decent nettle rash, scumbag!

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

That is brilliant!

I well remember those shoes with the big buckles from that era!

The letter on the epaulettes actually identified the division you were based in, so it was pretty crucial. But they were flimsy things and if the little pin snapped, you’d had it.

All the Royal Weddings, Jubilee, etc were nightmare for police to work and invariably long, long days without breaks, but they produced some wonderful tales to tell.

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

On the subject of funny stories I remember a couple of years ago, I wasn't well at the time, PTSD, and this led me to do some very odd things. I,d got up on this particular morning feeling very growly, someone was going to cop it, that was for sure. I decided about lunchtime to pop down to my local supermarket for something, it was closed (well it was Easter Sunday) that made it worse, by now I'm seething. there's a group sat outside the pub in the sun enjoying a drink, and as I looked up I saw about 5 youths on the roof of a local shop, trying to break in!
"That's it, they're coming in" I growled to my long suffering wife, sat quietly in the passenger seat. I drove around the corner to my local nick and walked in, a cop I knew was just coming out, "hey, I've a job round the corner, B&E with thieves on" I told him, he knew any info I had was good so shouted up on the radio, the nick was full of coppers on refs and they came pouring out, I dIrected them to cover various places, we had it almost surrounded, except the back, I'd cover that! Then a dog handler appeared, "can I help?" he asked, I told him to get his van and follow me, my poor wife just sat there in total confusion as the scene unfolded around her, I sped down the road and came to a sharp halt outside the pub, the dog van skidded to a stop beside me, all the people outside the pub suddenly watching us. He got the dog out and we walked to the rear of the premises, I stepped back, they were still on the roof, oblivious to the scene below them, "oi lads, come down, you're all nicked" I shouted up, they looked down and laughed, then the dog man appeared, one looked over the roof, more coppers, surrounded!
They came down and were all carted off, much to the amusement of our little audience outside the pub.I left our little gathering and went home feeling a lot better, ok, I was having a bad day, but not as bad as those thieving little scrotes, Our local inspector retired, he was a mate of mine and I don't half miss him, he was a proper copper and we worked well together, even though I wasn't on the force. it was amazing the number of local issues that were sorted out in his office over a coffee. lol

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

There was one incident involving a car ringing gang, they'd set up in quiet out of the way places in the hope of not being discovered and there was one such place at the end of our road.They moved in and shortly after I began to get suspicious of their activities, never open during the day, always working late at night, and the cars the took in were incredible. Subaru Imprezza'a and Mitsubishi Evo's were popular at the time, and it was these cars they were repairing, the only thing was looking at the level of damage on them, I knew they couldn't be repaired, and certainly not in the time it was taking them, on average a damaged car was 'repaired' in under a fortnight. My big break came when, shortly after a damaged car came in, it went out again, on a truck belonging to a local scrap yard, shortly after the 'same' car went out again, fully repaired, they were definately ringers!
I mentioned it to my mate, the inspector, he'd an Idea something was going on in the area, but didn't know where, he came down for a drive by and agreed something was up, so I began to film the goings on, and take notes, after about a week I had almost got enough evidence, and things began to unravel, I walked past the garage with my dog, a perfect cover for my little sorties, there parked opposite was a marked cop car, with a young copper in it!
I went home and rang the local nick, spoke to my mate and told him I needed that car gone, and now, I gave him the car number and minutes later it drove past our house, gone. A couple of days later I put all the info down on a disc and called in at the nick for a coffee with my mate, we chatted for a while about crime in the area and finally I got up to leave, it was then that I 'found' the disc on the floor, I gave it to my mate, said my goodbyes and left. A couple of days later the garage was raided, just in time as they were getting ready to move on. My mate rang me later with some interesting news, apparently the disc I'd found on the floor had all kinds of film and photo's on it, a lot involving stolen cars, which had led them to the garage, "it's funny though, if I didn't know better I'd say it had your markings all over it" he said "it just looks like the type of thing you'd do". It was his way of thanking me and yet keeping me out of the picture officially, some of these gangs can get pretty nasty at times, still I don't care, they needed nicking, and they got nicked. on the plus side, I could park my car on double yellows and not get a ticket. lol

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

I've just been watching one of those police programmes on the telly.

It infuriates me how the courts go so easy on convicted criminals.
One man had bitten a copper whilst being arrested and claimed that he had an infection, laughing at the fact that he could have passed that on to the copper.

At the end of the programme, it was mentioned that the copper had to wait three weeks to learn whether or not he had been infected, but fortunately had not.

The biting criminal was let off of the charge of physical assault by the court.

Re: Policing in the 1970’s

My family knew the Pub Landlord.